Illegal Bookmakers' Network Broken

Anti-organized crime officers disrupted
the largest illegal network of bookmakers' offices for online
betting in Bulgaria in a large-scale enforcement operation, the
Interior Ministry said on Wednesday. Between 20,000 and 50,000
euro flowed out through these offices every day, inflicting
losses on the Exchequer through tax evasion.

On Tuesday, the enforcers raided 23 betting offices in the
southern towns of Blagoevgrad, Petrich, Sandanski, Plovdiv,
Purvomai and Razlog, among other places. The raids followed
several months of surveillance which had found that the offices
handled sport bets to websites based in foreign countries,
including offshore jurisdictions.

The inspectors issued many written statements of illegal
gambling, each of them entailing a fine of between 25,000 and
50,000 leva. They impounded computer configurations used to
process the illegal bets, filled-out betting slips, betting
programmes and other relevant documents. They detected people
under 18 years of age among the customers.

A group of influential business people has been behind the
illegal operation. They organized and controlled the network.

The enforcers thus prevented the opening of new illegal
bookmakers' offices in many other Bulgarian towns. They
collected evidence of financial and tax offences, intellectual
property rights violations and money laundering, which will be
referred to the prosecuting authority. More work remains to be
done to document the offences.

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